


lead, and i will follow

by Tiara_of_Sapphires



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, F/M, Fix-It, Force Visions, Hurt/Comfort, Inspired by Orpheus and Eurydice (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore), The World Between Worlds (Star Wars)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2020-11-07
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:06:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26934079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tiara_of_Sapphires/pseuds/Tiara_of_Sapphires
Summary: Rey’s life is nothing but misery since Exegol. After a vision, she travels to the World Between Worlds to bring back Ben at any costs. Before she can, she has to have faith that he even wants to return.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 7
Kudos: 30
Collections: To Rapture the Earth and the Seas: the 2020 Reylo Fanfiction Anthology





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Here I am for RFFA 2020! My theme was Tidal Lock :)  
> Hope you all enjoy!

“Rey? You should sleep.”

The words barely registered as Rey practiced her forms. She was tired but couldn’t sleep. Each choppy, harsh sweep of her blade seemed to punish the air around her, cutting down targets that only she could see. If she had trained harder, if she hadn’t been so selfish and allowed him to trade his life for hers, it wouldn’t have been like this.

“Rey?”

Her form stuttered, a hesitation in her technique at the uncharacteristically sharp tone. Off-balance, the tip of her lightsaber slashed across the floor, sending up sparks. Rey cursed herself at being so easily distracted. She would need another dozen repetitions to make it perfect.

Rose stepped into view, sternness and concern warring in her gaze. Rey stepped back, both to keep her from accidentally striking Rose with her blade and just to put a little distance from the wave of pity that felt almost palpable.

“I’m busy.”

Rose glared disbelievingly. “It is oh-three-hundred. You should be busy sleeping, something you don't seem to do much of anymore.”

While it wasn’t a surprise that she was being watched by her Resistance allies, it stung in a way that she couldn’t identify. “Are you going to tell the others?” she asked bitterly.

She wouldn’t be able to stomach a lecture from Poe about taking care of her wellbeing. Finn would coddle her, demanding that she get rest and stop beating herself up. The Resistance leadership, those she had limited connection with, which was putting it nicely, wouldn’t be able to understand. Rey was the infallible Jedi, conqueror of the Dark Side, the one who slayed both Palpatine and Kylo Ren.

“I figure that they already know that something is wrong. You haven’t been the same since Exegol,” Rose said.

Rey’s mouth curled in a sneer that managed to look more tired than sharp how she had meant it. “Well, maybe I have always been like this.”

Bitterness and anger were easy things to feel. It was easier to lash out now that everything was off-kilter. Everything was too much, all the time. Her skin was too tight, burning with energy that could never find an outlet. She wanted to slash and hack and burn if it meant that the feeling of her body slowly tearing itself apart would go away.

There had been balance. It hurt her soul that Ben refused to turn and she let the bond run cold. Even then, despite the pain in the self-imposed loneliness, they were a balance and energy and now she was left bereft, a machine part without its counterweight, unable to fully function.

Rose shook her head. “You weren’t. I don’t know the Force like you, I know you. You were one way before Exegol, and now, you’re barely recognizable.”

Rey crumpled a little and deactivated her lightsaber. The yellow blade meant that she wasn’t quite a Jedi, not anymore. Not that anyone noticed or cared. Anyone who saw a lightsaber thought she was a Jedi. It was just a good excuse to keep the Skywalker lightsabers in a box in the far corner of her room, far away from her.

“I hear his voice in my dreams. He calls for me, but I cannot answer,” she rasped. “How can I sleep when I can hear his voice?”

She didn't need to tell Rose who she was referring to. Rose was the first person Rey told about what happened on Exegol, a story coming out in hiccupping sobs. She told Finn and Poe afterwards, weathering the anger and suspicion of Ben’s intentions as she insisted that he died to save her and save them all.

Rey shuffled over to the nearest storage crate and slid onto the floor to lean up against it. She wasn’t sure if it was meant to be capitulation to Rose’s demand to rest or a dismissal, but Rose sat next to her anyway.

“Losing my sister was like losing a piece of myself. I know that pain.”

Grief and exhaustion suddenly seeped into her bones, extinguishing the anger that made her want to lash out. It wasn’t fair to Rose to be angry, though Rey knew that it wasn’t the same and Rose would never understand.

“Memories of her make you happy, don’t they?” Rey murmured, glancing over to Rose.

Rose’s eyes were glossy and sad.

“They do. No matter what, no matter knowing how she died, I still remember her smiling.”

Rey wanted to bark out a laugh. The last thing Rey had of Ben was the memory of him smiling and laughing after kissing her. It was the first time she had ever seen something so beautiful and, of course, he died mere moments afterwards. Even her happiest memory of him was tarnished.

“I’m glad you have that to remember your sister. I—I don't feel like I have that for Ben.”

Even speaking his name felt like a knife to the heart. It was something that she didn’t say aloud, even in the privacy of her quarters.

Rose made a sound of sympathy. She seemed to be the only one in the Resistance that Rey could speak to about Ben. Everyone else still saw him as Kylo Ren in some way, not offering even a shred of gratitude for someone who helped end the war for good.

Even Rey was tainted in some of their eyes, fraternizing with and mourning the enemy. She couldn’t give a damn. If they were upset that she teamed up with the feared Kylo Ren, it was nothing compared to what would happen if they knew who she was.

“Tell me more about Paige,” Rey said.

It was easier to listen to other people and their stories. At least, it distracted them from asking about Rey about her problems.

Rose indulged her, telling about how Paige would scrounge for ingredients to make food from their native planet, to give themselves reprieve from the endless grief. It made Rey forget all of her sadness for a moment.

“Please, sleep. It might make you feel better,” Rose insisted as soon as the story tapered off.

Rey sighed, hunching a little. “If you say so,” she mumbled.

Rose stood before Rey could get started to pushing herself to her feet. She offered Rey a hand with a smile that Rey wasn’t sure she deserved and, of course, Rey took it.

“Thank you, Rose. For everything.”

The smile evaporated. “That sounds awfully like a goodbye, you know?”

Rey shook her head. “Not going anywhere.”

She meant it to be reassuring, but the hidden meaning behind her words sat like a boulder between them. There wasn’t anywhere for her to go anyway.

* * *

Bespin had an artificiality that was unsettling to Rey. Everything was too clean and bright, but she supposed that if her reality was full of light and her nightmares were full of darkness and dust and rubble, it wasn’t the worst thing.

She was late for yet another meeting. The Resistance, now once again the New Republic, found time to have meetings whenever possible. As the only Jedi known in the galaxy, that meant that she was required to attend.

Her heart wasn’t in it. She didn't remember the reason for the meeting or why it was important that she show up. She didn't even remember getting out of bed that morning. The walls of the strangely deserted halls were too bright, brighter than usual.

A quiet, sharp sound cut through the haze. Rey froze and looked down to see a marble, perfectly split between white and black, roll between her feet and spin in place like a top.

It rolled starkly against the now-hazy floor. Black-white, black-white, spinning into an indistinguishable smear.

“It’s a waste, isn’t it?”

Her heart dropped and the marble blurred as tears filled her eyes. Ben’s voice, deep and quiet, voicing aloud the thoughts that echoed through her head every day and every night.

“I suppose it is a waste. It all was a waste. All of this death, and for what?” Rey replied softly.

She beat her soul and her happiness to paste in the name of the war and defeating the dark side. Where did it lead her? She had no one, caught between the company of the former-Resistance and the loneliness of her power and her legacy.

“Look at me.”

Rey shook her head. He had never appeared to her except in her dreams of fractured memories and endless regrets.

“If I turn around, I’ll know this is a dream and I’ll wake up,” she croaked. “You didn’t even appear as a ghost so I could see you. None of this is real. You are gone.”

“Far away,” Ben corrected.

Chills trailed down her spine as the words breathed over her ear.

“There is a difference,” he continued. “You’re right, don’t turn around. Walk forward and look.”

A slate edifice slammed into view, sucking away all of the artificial light that surrounded her. Just as she could begin to comprehend the haunting words and the vision before her, the stone wall began to glow.

“Fix it,” a new voice boomed. It was something far away, painfully old and sad. “You must bring him back.”

She swayed in place, now unsure if she was dreaming or dying. She wished Ben would come back and resume the bittersweet dream, ending this horrible hallucination.

“I don’t know where to look,” Rey muttered.

“He belongs not to life or death. He is Between. The dyad is broken and balance will not come until it is fixed.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” she asked. “Between? There is no between. Dead is dead,”

A mocking laugh sounded behind her. “Already giving up, I see.”

“I’m not giving up!” Rey snapped, whipping around to face...nothing. A phantom, a ghost in her head.

“Hm, truly off-balance. I have told you all you need to know and yet you do not see.” Blinding light filled her vision, only to be doused by darkness.

“It is your path. You will walk between, or you will slowly be destroyed. You can feel it even now.”

She could feel it, her body slowly, ever so slowly, coming apart at the seams and being crushed into dust.

It was a weight in her chest, a steel case around her heart.

“There are always two. From the beginning, there were always two.”

The stone wall turned to dust and left only the glass marble, spinning and spinning, black-white, black-white. Suddenly, it froze and all Rey could see was the perfect divide.

There had to be a reason that her vision was showing her this. She unstuck herself and bent down with jerky, doll-like motions to scoop the little thing off of the ground.

“Will you show me?” She said it at the marble, but she spoke to the Force, to Ben, to anyone who would listen.

Everything was hazy and bright and her chest felt heavy and she almost didn’t notice the presence, painfully familiar, approach again. This time, not behind her, lingering like a ghost, but before her.

She didn’t dare look up. A hand closed over her palm, clasping it, warm and strong.

“I believe in you, Rey. Find me.”

Her eyes snapped up to find the truth behind his belief and blinding light filled her vision. The vision became hazy, form turning to shadow. Darkness followed.

She gasped as she awoke alone in her bed, feeling hot and cold at the same time. The dream, the _vision,_ had turned to only an echo in her head, but it was the most alive she had felt since Exegol, as if the bond that had been silent and dead for months had suddenly given the faintest light of life.

Her hands were empty, but she could still feel the ghost of his touch. He had appeared to her, after so long. He wasn’t gone but he was somewhere else. She just needed to find him. Then, the pain would end.

Frantic, she pulled out the Jedi texts, which she had stored—ignored—in her dresser. Seeing them did not bring as much pain as the lightsabers.

During the war, she had pored over them for techniques to hone in her abilities. They taught her to heal, the same ability that gave Ben his life and took it away from him.

If there was a Between, then the Jedi would have documented it.

* * *

Rose nearly broke down her door two days later. Rey opened the door with a distracted wave of the hand before the other woman could hardwire the lock.

“Stars and planets, Rey, what—”

She looked up to see that Rose had paused to stare wide-eyed at the room. Books and star charts and wadded up pieces of paper were strewn over the ground. Rey knew she looked unhinged where she hunched over another draft, scrawling a map that would lead her nowhere.

“What are you doing?” Rose demanded

Rey couldn’t begin to explain. Instead, she answered the question with another question: “Do you believe that there is something after death?”

Stars, she even sounded unhinged.

Rose blinked in confusion before stepping further into the room and let the door close behind her. Rey supposed she should be thankful that Rose would hide this from any passersby. Even in her haggard state, she knew what kind of rumors this would cause.

“What do you mean?” she asked

“Is there something after death? Or something between life and death?” Rey turned back to her work, almost expecting Rose to not answer.

“I suppose I never gave that much thought. When I was young, we were too preoccupied with the day-to-day to think about what happens after death,” Rose said. “Nowadays, I don’t know. I hope so. Some of my people believe in reincarnation. I suppose if I find Paige again in the next life, that would make me happy.”

Rey hummed, the idea of it burning tears in her eyes. It would be nice to believe in something like that, but Rey couldn't wait that long.

“I had a dream of a place between life and death. That is where Ben is and I can bring him back.”

“Rey, you told everyone that he was dead. How could you—"

Rey slashed her hand in the air, cutting Rose off. “I know that sounds crazy, but I know it is real. The place is real. There are mentions in the Jedi texts. I can find it and find him.”

There were drawings, portals in the margins of long-winded theorems. The vision was right. She just needed to piece everything together

“Everyone is worried about you,” Rose said softly.

“They should be. Nothing has been right since Exegol.”

Rey clacked her teeth together and turned back to etch another line between two points in the star chart. “There is a place between life and death, even between time itself,” Rey explained. “It’s called the World Between Worlds. There’s record of it, even from the times of the Empire.”

Rose took in a sharp breath. “So, that’s what this is. You’re trying to find it. You think Ben is there.”

“I _know_ Ben is there,” Rey corrected. “I can’t sense him like I can sense Luke and Leia. All I feel is...” Rey gestured at her chest, forming her hand into a fist. “I’m being crushed. Every part of me is being torn apart. If I don’t find him—”

“You will move on,” Rose interjected, raising her voice. “If this is affecting you so much, you should talk to someone and find some peace.”

“This isn’t something I can just talk away!” Rey shouted, pushing her chair back to stand. The lights flickered and the edges of her vision went grey. “This is the Force and destiny. We weren’t supposed to be separated like this.”

Rey knew that Rose meant well. These were the words for someone else, someone who lost a loved one during the war. To grieve and to move on were things for other people. It wasn’t the same for Rey. Her loss wasn’t the same.

They were supposed to die together. They were also supposed to live together. The lost futures haunted her dreams. They were meant to grow old together, hand in hand. They were meant to train the Force-sensitives that were scattered throughout the galaxy. They were meant to raise their own children, free from the darkness and hardship that had come before them.

“When I find the way, I will take a ship and find him. I will find him or I will die trying.”

“Rey—”

The exhaustion in Rose’s voice did nothing to sway her. “Enough,” Rey intoned. “When Ben returns, I can be the Jedi everyone expects me to be.”

Rose took it as the dismissal it was, but Rey could sense her roiling thoughts. She shut the door behind her after muttering something about having the droids bring some food to the room.

Rey turned back to her work, letting the pieces fall together to bring him home.


	2. Chapter 2

The map was a half-finished chart, leading towards the Inner Rim. Half of the hyperspace lanes it used were abandoned, under control of various syndicates in name only.

It would likely lead to a dead-end, leaving Rey without any lead. She knew she was running out of time. There was something calling to her and every moment that passed her body felt worse and worse. She knew that some part of her was being degraded with every second that passed, disappearing into nothingness.

This was an insane endeavor. Rose and the others had said as much as she departed on the _Falcon_. They thought she was wasting her time, grinding herself to paste in an attempt to defy death. Some even thought that her bringing BB-8 along was a waste of a droid to a suicide mission.

Rey swallowed around the sorrow and continued the path. There was no turning back for her. As for BB-8, well, she had a plan if she could not fulfill what she set out to do.

While the chrono told her that days had passed when she reached the end of the map, it felt like months.

There were always two, neither one living without the other. Her dreams haunted her with that fact, keeping her from giving up. She dreamt of celestial bodies in endless dances, in perfect balance and perfect exchange of energy.

Her chest felt like it was being crushed every time she awoke from those dreams, just a little weaker than the day before.

During the last hyperspace jump, Rey stumbled and fell back into the pilot’s seat, causing BB-8 to whistle in alarm.

“Stars and planets,” she breathed.

She sensed it, like a beacon through the stars. It tugged at her chest, leading her forward. Something was there, not quite tangible but present. It was unlike anything that she had experienced before.

Finally, she reached the end of the map. Thirty planets orbited the single yellow dwarf star and she knew deep in her bones which planet she was to land on before she even pinpointed the exact coordinates. The signal burned like a brand against her mind, instinct steering her hands. Ahch-To had felt something similar, in the hollow tree and the cave. This was neither Dark nor Light, but something in between, decidedly neutral.

She didn’t know what to make of it, but it was the best lead she had.

Dread replaced hope as the distance closed between the ship and her destination. The planet was a hardly-mentioned footnote in galactic history, omitted entirely in most star charts, so much so that Rey could only guess that it was habitable.

The Jedi had found bastions of the Force across the galaxy. It was probably for the best that the temple had been lost to history in the millennia since it was apparently abandoned.

As she approached, she was beginning to see why there were no records. The planet was tidally locked with the star, keeping one side in a perpetually blazing daytime, the other side a frigid nighttime. The star-facing side had a climate worse than Jakku’s, and they would never have the luxury of nighttime to cool things off.

The computer readings gave a temperature difference of two hundred degrees between the side facing the star and the side permanently faced away from it.

Panic welled up in Rey’s chest. Stars, she thought she had given up barren desert planets when she left Jakku.

“How could there be a temple here? How could anything be out here?” she breathed.

It felt like a rebuke, a slap in the face. She tore herself apart to find this patchwork map and all it led her to was somewhere lifeless. Not even the most ascetic Jedi could brave such a place.

She was grateful for the viewports keeping her from going blind when the star came into view and for the autopilot for keeping her from crashing when the world turned hazy for a few terrible seconds.

Her body was combusting. She could feel herself coming apart into some horrible chaos. She had failed and her body would only surrender to the disorder.

_Rey!_

“Ben,” she breathed.

BB-8 screeched, pulling her out of the daze as she realized that the ship had tilted into a nosedive. Rey fumbled for the controls as she righted the ship.

Rey shook herself, forcing away her doubts. “Lead me.”

The ship soared over the planet, finding the line between where the sun beat down constantly, turning the landscape to a fiery blight and where the sun never showed its face, leaving the ground a freezing wasteland. Where the temperature and air composition allowed it, sickly ponds and tufty grasses were the only signs of life. Rey would, in theory, be able to breathe if she stayed in that narrow zone. It was now just a point of finding anything that could resemble habitation.

* * *

It took hours before she finally caught sight of the temple; a half-broken-down stone structure that stood stark where it was surrounded by flatlands and scraggly plants. It was the only sign of civilization, occupied or otherwise.

Rey landed the _Falcon_ , keeping an eye on the computers to make sure that she wouldn’t die instantly the moment she stepped out of the ship. She was in the right place. It was as if the temple had a leash around her heart, leading her forward.

Rey pulled out the twin lightsabers and clipped them to her belt, leaving her yellow blade on the ship. She still felt she had no right to them after her failure, but she wasn’t going to let herself be blinded by self-hatred. Something about them made her feel safer now that they landed. The computers claimed that the air was safe to breathe, but Rey still took one of the masks and covered her head with her hood before lowering the ramp. She was almost knocked over by the wind when she stepped onto the craggly rocks. Spitting a curse, she pressed one hand to her hood to keep it over her head as she stumbled towards the archway.

Wind and time had taken its toll on the temple. Where there once were stone paths and columns remained now only as rubble. There wasn’t a glimmer of any recognizable technology, which pointed to how long it had been since the temple had been occupied. It didn't have the luxury of caretakers like Ahch-To did.

The path led to the courtyard and for a moment Rey could imagine Jedi performing their morning meditations.

The thrum of life had been extinguished through time, long enough ago that she couldn’t sense those who had come before her. She could sense the entryway, but it was all-encompassing, no directionality to it.

She glared at the façade at the front of the main temple building, seeing no obvious sign of the entrance in the cracks and lines that etched up and down the stone. She pursed her lips, figuring that it was foolish to think that what she wanted was sitting right at the entrance of the temple.

As she searched through the halls for a clue, a gateway, something, she could sense no obvious intelligent life. The crumpled buildings were teeming with bugs and little animals that took refuge from the harsh environment outside. It would be easy to disappear in the temple, to be absorbed into its hollow loneliness.

“Lead me,” she breathed.

Every ray of light that pierced the cracks in the wall had its shadow to accompany it. The mark of the Jedi had all but disappeared from this place, but the Force remained. She circled the temple before finding herself back at the entrance.

It took her a moment to see that the cracks that etched down the facade were actually part of a drawing. Two figures, spindly and abstract stood facing each other, hands reached out to each other. Between their fingertips was a subtle bump in the wall, shiny in comparison to the rough stone.

Rey reached out with the Force, finding that strange stone embedded into the wall.

A faint click sounded and the ground rumbled underneath her feet. Cracks split down the façade and pieces of the ancient mural crumbled away. Bright light and fresh, cool air rippled from the hole.

Fear clutched at Rey’s throat as she blinked back stars that flashed in her vision.

There was no other place like this—this strange otherness—like sitting between two radio frequencies, hearing shattered bits of both that were almost recognizable. Two turned to ten to a thousand to a million, all disjointed sounds of life and death.

Rey glanced back, almost expecting ancient beings to attack in defense of this place. There was nothing but silence and the wind.

One hand hovering over the lightsabers, she stepped through the crack in the wall and stepped onto a starry path.

Rey immediately spat out a curse. The path under her feet branched out into five paths, all branching out again and again, some ending in portals that looked akin to those fancy mirrors that Rey had seen during her missions for the Resistance.

There was no direction. She had been set upon a mountain of sand, told to look for one particular grain.

It was a task that would take a lifetime, maybe hundreds of lifetimes to find. Something told her that, if she needed that long, she would be granted it. That was of little consolation.

She started to walk up branching paths, glancing into the portals she passed. Most of them were moments of time that meant nothing to her, lives and times that were far removed from her. It would have been easy for her to become detached from her search if she looked only into the lives of strangers, but then the familiar would appear, passing curiosities, not quite enough to make her pause. She did not come here to become a voyeur of her friends’ lives.

Here and there, she would catch familiar scenes, moments that meant everything to her.

Finally, there were moments she wished she could forget.

She shook her head at every portal that showed her the painful past, knowing that she could not interfere with the moments that ruined her life: her parents leaving; every minute and every hour of her loneliness and hardship on Jakku; Han dying; believing Chewie was dead because of her.

One portal stopped her in her tracks.

It was Exegol and Rey was dead.

Rey watched her body lay lifelessly in the rubble, covered in dust, eyes wide and blank. Ben stumbled into view, leg crippled, grief and panic raw on his face. She watched, tears threatening to choke her, as he pulled her body into his arms. He gasped his own grief, looking for help that would not come, pressed her to his chest in an unreciprocated embrace.

Then, determination stole over him as he placed his hand over her abdomen and poured his life into her.

She didn’t want to look at what came next. She knew what happened like the back of her hand. The waking, the smiles, the kiss, the death.

She looked and watched as joy was found and lost in her own face over and over. She wanted to linger there and waste away. Live in the smiles and the kiss, over and over for the rest of eternity, until the pain was numbed and there was only that brief happiness, while the galaxy turned without her.

It would have been easy, just like how it would have been easy to leave the Resistance and go into hiding at any point during the war. She could have just never found Luke and instead had Chewie drop her off at the nearest inhabited system and disappear.

She couldn’t linger.

It took minutes, or maybe days. Rey couldn’t tell. Her body kept moving forward, neither exhaustion or hunger nor thirst bothering her.

Finally, she found one portal that was different from the others. It was an opaque oval, no moment in time playing in an endless loop. There was stagnation, like stepping into a long-abandoned room, not quite alive, not quite rotting.

She knew it was the right place. The Jedi texts spoke of a locus where all life and death met, converging and diverging to what was considered Beyond. From there, spirit and consciousness went…somewhere. Most of the description was very conceptual and philosophical, but she could think of nowhere else that would match that portal. She stepped through, struggling through each step as if the portal wanted to keep her out.

Rey was met with mist and a long, flat field. If this was death, or what lay just before death, it seemed to fit the image that Rey had built in her mind. It was stagnant and it felt like her own heartbeat slowed in her chest.

It didn’t take her long to find a long, wide river that bisected the fog with black, sluggish water and icy, clear air. She didn’t dare jump across. Instead, she walked along the riverside, aimless.

Billions, trillions of dead beings could exist in this place. She didn’t know if it was only Force sensitives that could be sent here. The books never specified.

It was a lonely place. There were only the shadows of strangers dotting the landscape for miles and miles, drifting in the long grass. It seemed only a relative few had been sent here.

She glanced back to see the portal she had walked through as just a pinprick of light in the distance, still there for her to step through once she had found who she was searching for.

Her body didn’t tire, but her soul seemed to get heavier and heavier as she walked.

Finally, just as she was sure that her body would turn grey like the shadows around her and her goals would be dashed into nothing, she caught sight of a figure at the shore.

“Ben?” she breathed.

She didn't even question it. She had seen that silhouette in her dreams. It was him.

Pebbles crunched under her feet as she sprinted forward and grabbed his arm. He was solid, but so cold and so still. Rey walked around to face him, wondering why he didn't respond to her voice and touch. What she found was a blank stare, a grey, ghostly shade. It was Ben, unmistakably so. He stared forward, through her.

“Look at me. Ben? It’s me, Rey. I found you,” she said, shaking him, overwhelmed.

She looked for a reaction, even the slightly glimmer of recognition. Those dark eyes remained hooded and blank.

“What is wrong with him? Why won’t look at me?” Rey breathed.

“He is neither alive nor dead. He is between states.”

The recognizable voice still had her whipping around, one hand still on Ben’s arm and the other reaching for the lightsaber on her side. She froze when she saw who had spoken.

“Luke?”

The Jedi stood in his robes, dozens of other cloaked figures at his back. “We are glad that you found the doorway. You had been so closed off to us that it was almost impossible to get the message to you.”

“You led me here,” Rey said quietly.

“The Force led you here,” Luke corrected. “It is your destiny that you come here and bring Ben back.”

“He wasn’t supposed to die?” Rey asked, throat tightening with sudden tears.

“No. It wasn’t time for either of you,” he replied. “If all goes well, we won’t see each other for a very long time."

She nodded, feeling strangely faint. How long had she wallowed in suffering, consumed by herself, when she could have found the answer if she had just reached out? If only she had reached out sooner, she would have freed Ben and herself. She wouldn’t have wasted so much time.

Rey took Ben’s hand which rested limp and lifeless in hers. “I will lead him back,” she said. She squeezed his hand, wondering if he would move if she led him.

“You can’t go back. The portal you went through is a one-way trip.”

Rey turned to see that the light from the portal at the horizon disappeared.

“What do you mean? I’m stuck here?” Rey demanded.

Luke shook his head. “Someone like Ben can’t travel back through that portal. You must lead him forward.”

A portal materialized next to the specterlike Jedi, opaque and shadowy like the portal that brought her to this place.

“Lead him through, but you must not look back. If you look back to see if he follows, he will return to this place and never be able to leave. You are dyad, locked to each other like the planet and its moon. You must go forward, always forward, and he will follow you to the light.”

She swallowed, feeling suddenly like she was choking. “How will I know that he is still following me?”

“You must trust the Force that he will return to you,” one of the men at Luke’s shoulder said. The gentle Core World accent was painfully familiar, but she couldn't place it. “This is your trial, Rey. Yours, and his as well.”

From what little she knew about the Jedi trials, the thought of her task being one made her want to laugh and it made her want to scream.

“Why can’t you just give him back to me?” she hissed.

“It is not that easy to conquer death, Rey. It is something you must both earn.”

Rey bared her teeth and wished that igniting her lightsaber would inspire any fear in the ghosts that surrounded her. “You used me as your tool to defeat Palpatine and left me for dead. You let him die because he shouldered the burden you should have carried. Does that mean nothing to you or to the Force or anything?”

The stoic expressions in response to her words were answer enough. They would not budge from their antiquated traditions, even after death.

“You were right all along. The Jedi should have ended long ago!” she spat.

Luke tilted his head, something akin to fear flashing across his face. “So, you won’t do it?”

Even in death, some part of him clung to his legacy. She supposed it was only fair. “Of course, I’m going to do it,” she shot back.

She would do it. Determination burned through her. She would physically drag Ben across all of time and space if she had to. They had suffered too much for anything less. He would live, she would live, and they would find whatever future they had seen when they first touched hands all of those years ago. She would play this little game out of obligation to Ben and to herself. The Jedi would allow her to suffer and have Ben remain in this suspended state in the name of their pedantism. While it was a step better from what Palpatine had offered on Exegol, which was ultimately her death, the idea of it all lay bitter in her mouth.

She voluntarily steeped herself in an ideology that bit her in the ass the moment she needed it most. It was almost comical.

She couldn't hear him breathe and she doubted that she would hear him walking behind her.

“Your trial begins now, Rey. Step forward.”

She wished she had the opportunity to take one more look back at Ben, but now she could only stare forward.

“Fine,” she rasped.

She stepped through the portal, a silent ghost on her shoulder, and dove straight into a nightmare.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Moodboard made by the RFFA mods!

The dream wasn’t hers. She was sure of that.

Her dreams were of sand and starving and falling down elevator shafts. They were of a throne room, of dying, of watching Ben die, of both of them dying. An endless dark pit, falling and falling while her grandfather’s cackling laugh echoed in her ears.

Rey knew better, as a black-stone hallway seemed to stretch. She didn't recognize the place, but she still felt a fear that wasn’t just of the unknown. Her footsteps echoed, but she couldn't hear her companion walking behind her. She couldn't see his shadow as she passed flickering electrical lights.

Shades didn't make noise or have shadows, she supposed. She was completely blind and deaf to Ben unless she turned around, something she couldn’t do until she found herself at the end of the trial.

She had to trust that Ben wanted to come back, that the Jedi didn't just double-cross her.

Finally, the hallway opened to the inside of a small hut. The only source of light was the distant flashes of lightning that crept through the little windows.

Rey crept forward. Clay figures, a calligraphy set, and a cleaning kit were strewn around the desk at the foot of an occupied bed.

“ _They hate you._ ”

She stiffened as the voice echoed in her head. She knew that voice. It was the one that arose every time a rival scavenger had stolen from her, when Plutt had cut her portions for the day, at every callous remark from her Resistance allies.

The Dark Side, this time taking Snoke’s voice, flooding Ben’s head with lies.

“ _Your blood reeks with the Dark Side. Everyone knows it. They fear your strength and they should. You could strike them down, everyone who made you feel small and lonely._ ”

A retreating back, a goodbye hug—alone again and again.

“ _Your mother fears you. Your father doesn't understand you. And your uncle, oh, your uncle is waiting to strike you down like a rabid animal.”_

 _“Strike first, before they can kill you. It is your destiny._ ”

The sleeping form shifted in the bed, tossing and turning before going still again.

“No.” Rey breathed the word, as if willing it to be so. She understood now. She knew what this was.

She watched as Luke entered the hut, igniting his lightsaber when he sensed the voices in Ben's head. The horror and the regret and the fear as Ben awoke and their blades crossed.

Ben shared that moment with her, how betrayed he felt when Luke turned against him. It was all-encompassing, Luke's actions feeling like an extension of Han and Leia's.

Alone, all alone. Except, for that voice in his head, crowing about how it was right.

The stone hut collapsed on their heads and turned to sand.

Jakku’s sun was blinding for a moment before Rey’s vision cleared. She almost wanted to laugh at it. Of course, the trial would bring her here.

“We have to go!”

Rey's mouth twisted as she watched a blonde woman pawed at Rey’s younger self, gazing at her with all the recognition and love that Rey herself couldn’t conjure. How could she feel anything for this woman? She had been so young, unable to understand why her mother was upset and why she was left alone.

The man, her father, pulled at the woman's arm, tearing her away from Rey. Part of her was almost glad that the memory didn’t show her father's affection for her, if there was any. She saw the exchange of credits at Plutt's shop, only years later would she understand.

Her younger self wept and wailed, chasing after the retreating ship only to be stopped by a harsh hand.

“ _Your parents left you. They were so afraid of their own lives that they dumped you in the hands of a slave master._ ”

She jerked, hearing Palpatine’s voice thunder in her head, imposing and snake-like.

Screams pierced the air as she felt her parents die. As a child, maybe she felt it then too, or maybe she was too in shock and in denial to comprehend what had happened.

“ _They weren’t strong enough to stay alive, just as young Ben Solo was. He died and left you alone. Turn around, and you will see that he is far away from you._ ”

Rey gritted her teeth. The vision ripped open very old wounds. She liked to pretend that she was strong and that it didn’t affect her. It had been so long that she had hoped that eventually, years later, it wouldn’t hurt anymore. After everything, it weighed down on her.

Rey moved on. She left Jakku and untethered herself from the childish longing for her parents. Her parents were dead, long gone.

The belonging you seek is not behind you; it is ahead. When Maz told her that, at the time, Rey wanted to gag at the sentiment. Some part of her still did, now that a shadow lingered at her shoulder and she couldn’t turn around even if she wanted to.

Ahead. Always ahead.

A roar rumbled across the sands, as if taking the challenge that she unwittingly made.

Sand turned to metal and fire. Snoke’s throne room was a day that she mentally revisited over and over again. Rey lost her faith for a long moment, that Ben would let Snoke kill her. She had been so tantalizingly close to turning him to the light and he only threw it back in her face as her mind was probed and picked at by Snoke. Then, he struck down his old master and stood back to back with her in battle. They were so in tune with each other, a fulfillment of the dyad, even if they didn’t truly know it at the time.

He stretched out his hand to her when the din calmed, but for all of the wrong reasons. As the Resistance died around them, he only thought about his vision—his version of how the galaxy would spin now that Snoke was dead.

While he asked for her friendship, she had been filled with anger. She had seen only his selfishness, not how he had seen himself happy in the vision he had seen. Even if she had him, she would have lost him to his ideals. It wasn’t the right time. There would never be the right time. She was alone again, even with him right across from her with his wide, pleading eyes.

She lashed out, fate making the decision for them as the lightsaber split and the ship was destroyed. Rey ran as hard as she could, running away from her feelings as Ben lay unconscious on the ground.

“ _You made the decision to leave him. You trusted your instincts and it saved your friends. Do it again,_ ” the voice taunted, now sounding more like Snoke.

She winced as the ground shifted under her feet and she was back on the Falcon, leading the remaining Resistance members back into the ship.

The last connection Rey and Ben had was without words. Luke’s death was a fresh wound in the Force. She was steeped in her anger, Ben in his sorrow and loneliness. She shut the door in his face and punched the metal with her fist as the connection slammed closed.

The regret would come later, as she laid in her cot hours later. She thought about how things could have been different, if she had said the right things. That regret would morph into something deeper as the war took its course. They could have been a united front against the rest of the First Order, against Palpatine. Instead, they severed themselves from each other, broken over the rocks of their anger and shattered under Exegol’s storm.

Air hissed between her clenched teeth, suddenly finding herself unable to move forward.

For the briefest moment, between the fear of imminent death and the fear of battle, she had been happy. She had been right, that he would turn to her. That would be something she wished she could wallow in forever.

Bright red and fire turned to grey mist and immediately the faint nostalgia disappeared.

Kef Bir was her nightmare.

She killed Ben, or she would have if she didn't have the knowledge of Force healing. He had a similar feeling of betrayal from the hut, only this was deeper. What was worse was that he accepted it. His mother died to reach out to him, one last attempt to bring him to the light, and Rey dealt a killing blow.

Ben felt like he deserved to die. He expected Rey to leave him alone to die of his wounds. She left him there, after healing him. She left him to his turmoil, returning to Ahch-To. There, she only found pain. And then, he came back for her, the one who betrayed him, to give up his last breaths for her.

Ben must have been behind her. Despite everything, he did come back for her. He was at her shoulder, silent, but still there.

Rey sucked in a breath and willed the vision away.

“Enough of this,” she snapped, half to herself, half to whatever was tempting her.

She tried to take a step forward, but the ground pulled at her feet, trying to keep her in place. Her trial would not end.

“ _All he ever does is leave. Don’t you see it, child? He didn’t go with you on Crait. He didn’t accept your hand Kef Bir. He let himself steep in the darkness until it was too late._ ” Rey shook her head and covered her ears as if it would block the mocking voice that boomed in her head. The voice was a knife drawn against metal; it was Palpatine; it was Snoke; it was the bitter part of herself that wanted to die. “ _He is even gone now, as you toil through your nightmares. Even in death, reduced to his basest existence, he would not follow you. Look and see._ ”

The temptation of it almost stopped her heart. She knew it would be temporary relief. Turning around would make the voice go away and lift the temporary—she hoped it was temporary—weight on her spirit, but it would forever scar her, body and mind. She couldn't sentence herself to that fate, not when she was so close.

A moon does not rise up and leave. He would not leave her, just as she would not leave him. Rey inhaled with a shudder. He was behind her. He had to be.

She kept walking forward as the scene dissolved to a mercurial grey.

The long hallway returned in all of its silent dimness. Somehow, it made her feel even more lonely than before. At least, during the visions, she had something to think about.

“ _You think it would be that easy? You think that someone of your blood, of his blood, would be allowed to exit such a place?_ ” Her path disappeared under her feet, leaving her in the dark, with only the voice that seemed to seep into her very spirit in its attempt to poison her. “ _I see your heart, Rey of Jakku, Rey, child of Palpatine. You cling to the light by your fingertips._ ”

“ _Why do you continue, when you know what he is?_ ”

A snowy scene, a rabid man with a red lightsaber.

“ _He is death and decay. Hundreds have been laid waste by his blade alone_.”

A blighted wasteland, robed figures falling one after another. The throne room, Snoke and his bodyguards in smoking pieces.

“I don’t care,” she hissed.

She killed too. She killed plenty when she lived on Jakku, more while in service of the Resistance. She wasn’t any better; she couldn’t be.

“ _He will destroy you!_ ”

For a moment, she saw the vision that haunted her. It was her, ghostly white and cloaked in black, lounging on that metal throne that Palpatine made for her in the temple on Exegol. At her right hand, Kylo Ren, bloodthirsty and smug in the fact that the Jedi, Skywalker’s protégé was corrupted.

“ _Turn around and look upon him. Banish him back to death’s arms and be rid of him,_ ” the voice hissed.

Screams of pain echoed through her ears, billions of people crippled under the lash of Sith rule. Palpatine wanted this, in the end, and she almost gave it to him.

“ _I know you feared it,_ ” it crooned, full of put-on concern. “ _The blood of Skywalker and Palpatine were never meant to be so close. It drove a wedge between you two and now he is rightfully dead._ ”

“Stop,” she breathed.

She didn’t reach out her hand to Ben in Snoke’s throne room for a reason. She knew what path it would lead them on, and it would only bring destruction for both of them.

Things changed, during the war. She yearned for him, for what he was and what he could become. Then, it was all thrown back in her face. He hadn’t changed and she danced closer and closer to the dark because blood was destiny. It didn't have to be like this, but it was. They were doomed.

He turned to the light and he died for his efforts. No matter what side they fell on, they would always be unhappy. It would have been easier to get a clean break from all of this. She could turn and the nightmares would disappear.

And that would leave her where? She would be alone again in fulfillment of the visions that tore at her with every step. How could she return empty-handed, with her mind and body slowly coming apart? How long would she be able to dwell with the Resistance before she died?

She couldn’t give up, even if it tore her up inside to go forward.

“ _Hm, then face it_ ,” the voice said, with all the dismissal and contempt as if she were a dirty animal.

The Rey on the throne stood and activated her double-bladed lightsaber. Ben stepped forward and activated his blade in turn.

Rey stepped back and her shaking hand reached for the lightsaber at her hip.

Despite the punishing training since Exegol, her confidence wavered as blue light washed over her face. There was no comfort in the familiarity of it.

Could she kill them? Could they kill her?

She could destroy herself. The Rey that had found the dark version of herself was long gone, no longer afraid. Rey could dice her to pieces and not feel a thing. Ben—Kylo Ren, whoever this specter was, she couldn't help but hesitate. He still wore the face of the man she searched for.

Her opponents didn’t share in her hesitation.

As she engaged with them, Rey could immediately see that these two were pale imitations of what Rey and Ben could do when they fought side by side. The specters were arrhythmic, off-balance. While they wore the faces of a dyad, they did not fight like one. They stepped in each other's way, not complementing each other's battle styles. Kylo fought in heavy-handed, chopping motions, Rey's foil with similar, ruthless sweeps of her double-bladed lightsaber. Lazy, lounging. They had grown complacent in their conquest, seeing Rey as another bug to be squashed.

Rey lunged forward, maneuvering herself that she wouldn’t end up between Kylo and her counterpart. When it was just Rey and her counterpart fighting, Rey could see her weaknesses, the obvious openings that Ben would have covered for her if they had fought together. Kylo made no such move, hanging back as Rey’s shadow did the work.

Seeing the vicious satisfaction in her own features sent a chill down Rey's spine.

That satisfaction quickly faded when Rey grabbed the long hilt of her enemy’s saber, holding away as she stabbed downward into her gut. The temple rumbled around them as she fell to the ground, lifeless.

Kylo gave no reaction to his partner's death, taking her place in the fight as if she was never there. Rey gritted her teeth, wide-eyed.

“What is this meant to show me? You’re trying to kill me, but none of this is real,” Rey hissed.

Kylo smirked at her, all cruel dismissal, before lunging for her. On the defensive, Rey parried his blows, unable to get the momentum to strike decisively in return. Their sabers locked and suddenly Rey was so close that she could see her reflection in his dark, dead eyes. The sparks burned her hands and the lightsaber was ripped from her grasp. Brute force struck her in the chest, sending her staggering back.

The crackle of Kylo Ren’s lightsaber was near-deafening.

She lost. Now, Ben would be lost forever.

“He came back for me. After everything, he came back for me,” she gasped, choking around tears. “Please.”

The stones bit into her hands and knees as she collapsed, all of her willpower exhaling from her.

“Weak.”

It was Ben’s voice, but not his words. She couldn’t look at him. She had lost and this Kylo, this Ben, would kill her for her failure.

“Finish it, then,” Rey breathed.

She closed her eyes and waited for death.

“You.”

A second blade ignited, deafeningly loud and Rey opened her eyes. Blue light spilled onto the floor, but she didn’t dare look up.

Everything blurred together in flashes of light and clashing of blades until everything went dark and silent.

“Ben?” Rey whispered.

She staggered to her feet, loneliness closed over her once again. There was no indication on who won, if Kylo and his opponent destroyed each other. She couldn’t look back yet. If her hero still stood behind her, she would see him soon.

Rey ran down the hall, for the light awaiting at the end of it.

The voice returned, less a voice and more a force of nature. It tore at her, grabbing at her hair and clothes, screaming indistinct syllables as she dragged herself forward, forward, until light filled her vision and the pain turned to nothingness.

When the blankness cleared from Rey's eyes, slowly, she regained sense of her surroundings. Exhaustion bore down on her as she took in steadying breaths. The temple walls came into focus, still grey and lifeless.

Dust and dirt, but it was all real.

For a long moment, she kept her eyes forward, towards the dim pseudo-night that fell over the courtyard. She had little reason to hope, after all of these months of pain. The thought of turning around and seeing nothing choked her with tears. Maybe she had been weak and did turn around, voiding her trial and sending Ben back to the arms of death.

Rey thought about standing there, facing forward, until her own death eventually came.

Then, she turned around.

Alive, solid, was Ben, standing at her shoulder. Relief made her knees go weak as her eyes roamed over his form, unwilling to touch him just yet.

“Ben?”

He blinked at her, horribly blank for a moment. And then, the recognition dawned over his face, recognition and confusion.

“Rey—where?” He looked around, wide-eyed, but her eyes were only for him. “What happened?”

She answered him by closing the gap between them, wrapping her arms around his broad, warm, living chest and pressing close. “You’re back,” she gasped around a wave of tears. Rey pulled back to look at him, seeing only frozen bewilderment in his face.

Slowly, he reached up to cup her cheek in his hand. He stroked his thumb under her eye, over the deep, bruise-like shadow. “I feel like I was asleep for a very long time. It wasn’t sleep, was it?”

Rey shook her head, suddenly unable to look him in the face. “No, I—” she choked off her words, unsure of how to explain the months of pain and the trial she went through to bring him back.

“I just remember your smile, before everything went dark.”

Her eyes snapped to his at the amazement in his voice.

“We can talk about this later,” she murmured. She glanced around him to see that the light-filled entrance had turned to dark stone. The cracks in the wall were the only sign that anything had happened.

Ben reached up to push her bangs out of her face, brushing over her temple as he did so. Rey leaned into the touch helplessly. “I was gone for a long time,” he said.

“Months,” she croaked.

He glanced behind him to see the broken edifice. Surely, he sensed the power that radiated from that place, even as the portal had gone dark.

“What did you have to do to bring me back?”

She closed her eyes and shook her head. Just thinking about what she had seen made her want to curl into a ball. “Whatever it was, it was worth it. Trust me.”

The hand that still hovered near her face drifted a little lower before his finger gently touched under her chin, urging her to look up at him.

“We should get off this planet before something else happens,” Rey said, making no move towards the ship.

Ben hummed softly, watching her with an inscrutable expression. Exhaustion, definitely, but there was something warmer there as well. Rey moved first, reaching up to cup the back of his head, ignoring the dust and rubble that still clung to his skin from what she assumed was Exegol.

She kissed him with all of the relief and with all of the words she couldn’t convey aloud.

 _Thank you,_ she said through the bond _. Welcome back._

_Welcome home._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tada!
> 
> Thank you so much for reading!!

**Author's Note:**

> And it begins! Will be posting updates every Friday until the story is finished (which will be quick lol)  
> All comments and such are appreciated, especially in stressful times like this!  
> [I am also attempting to make my general twitter my writer twitter. Give me a follow there as well!](https://twitter.com/BlooRalts)  
> Cheers!


End file.
